


In Quiet Rooms

by crowquake



Category: Night at the Museum (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, M/M, set in Australia because screw america, so basically Jed is crocodile dundee
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-20
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-07-09 12:19:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19887679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crowquake/pseuds/crowquake
Summary: Tomorrow comes too soonThe end is in full bloomI want to be consumedTo love in quiet rooms





	1. Octavius says like one word

**Author's Note:**

> Okay some stuff before we start:
> 
> 1\. This is set in Australia and Larry, Jed, and Teddy are all Australian. Everyone else is still whatever they are in the movies. This is because I am lazy and cannot be bothered even trying to think about how American schools work. 
> 
> 2\. I’m not bilingual, English is my only language, so I’m just trying to write bilingual/multilingual characters as best I can based on my friends/people I know, but if I’m getting anything iffy feel free to tell me and correct it. Any sentences in Italian will be italicised for differentiation, but still written in English.

Octavius shuffled his feet nervously as he waited outside the classroom he was going to be escorted into once the teacher had explained to the class why he was there. This was going to be his whole next few days, waiting, being ushered in, being properly introduced by the teacher, then sitting down and trying to listen to someone speak in a language he barely understands.

He had a basic knowledge of English, but it was hardly enough to hold a conversation. His parents had told him that he wouldn’t have to do much work for his first few months at his new school because of that, and most of what he did do would just be improving his English so he could get on to the actual work. He supposed it was relieving, in a way. He would like to do actual school work, but if he couldn’t even read most of it there was no point in trying. He’d say Italian was much easier, but he guessed native English speakers would say the same of English (he would be wrong).

After about five minutes, the teacher finally came out to let him know he could go in, and he followed behind her silently. She stood him in front of everyone and he stood there awkwardly, saying nothing besides correcting the teacher on the pronunciation of his name (she said it as oct-ah-vius instead of oct-ay-vius, somehow). 

He was eventually sat next to an Egyptian boy who he was told was in all his classes, so they’d been lumped together. Octavius didn’t mind, and the boy, Ahkmenrah, didn’t seem to either. He was incredibly polite, and spent the whole lesson whispering things about the other students in Italian. Octavius wasn’t sure how he knew Italian, but he wasn’t complaining. Whenever the teacher asked what they were talking about, Octavius would put on an innocent face and Ahkmenrah would say he was just talking about how nice the school was.

Needless to say, they became friends rather quickly. Ahk had an aura about him that just made him easy to get along with and talk to, and them being able to speak the same language was very helpful in that.

Ahkmenrah waited outside with him at his next class, giving him a reassuring pat on the shoulder when they had to go in. That was also where Octavius was introduced to Ahk’s boyfriend, Larry, who did not speak Italian but was nice anyways. They were able to hold a conversation via Ahk translating anything they needed translated. Octavius felt kinda sorry for him having to do that, and said as much, but Ahk said it was fine. He even offered to help him with his English.

Faster than the Italian would have expected, it was time for their first break of the day. Ahkmenrah and Larry offered for him to sit with them and their friends, and he gladly accepted. He hoped the rest of their friends were as nice as them.

Ahk and Larry led him over to a table underneath a willow tree, where a shaggy-haired blond in a cowboy hat was talking loudly about trains to a boy who looked more like a grown man than the 17 year old that he was.

“Jed, Attila, hey!” Larry called out and waved to them. The one with the cowboy hat paused his rambling to wave back.

“Hey, Gigantor! Long time no see!” He yelled, probably louder than was necessary, “who’s that?” He asked, looking at Octavius, whose eyes widened.

“This is Octavius, his family just moved here from Italy,” Ahkmenrah explained, “he can’t speak much English so I’m his temporary translator.”

“Uh... hello.” Octavius nervously smiled and gave a small wave. He internally cringed at his own accent, but nobody else seemed to mind.

“Octavius, this is Jedediah,” Ahk gestured to the blond one, “and Attila,” the other boy waved, “ _they’re very nice, don’t be scared by how loud they are_.” He added in Italian.

“ _Don’t worry, I have a big family, I’m used to loud people_.” Octavius smiled. Ahkmenrah laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. The other three looked confused, but didn’t ask what he’d said.

“My English, it is not so good either,” Attila said, “better at understanding than speaking.” Octavius was much the same, but he wasn’t really good with either. There were words similar enough to his native language that he could guess what they were if he didn’t actually know them, at the very least.

“I’ll try not ta talk too much so Ahk don’t have to work too hard.” Jed grinned.

“I doubt Octavius will want to hear much of what you have to say anyway.”

“Shut up, Ahk.” 

They sat down and started eating, the other four falling into easy conversation while Octavius focused on eating. They were mainly talking about stuff he doubted he would understand even if his English was perfect, so he decided not to even bother.

The bell soon rang, and they went their separate ways to their next classes, Octavius sticking with Ahkmenrah.

As the day ended, Octavius and Ahkmenrah exchanged phone numbers, and Octavius gave him permission to give his number to the other three.

—————

After eating dinner with his parents and siblings, and everyone exchanging stories about their first days at their new schools and jobs (Octavius wasn’t the oldest of all his siblings, but he was the oldest still in school and the only one in high school), Octavius retired to his room he temporarily shared with his two older brothers. 

His family was quite wealthy so they did have a large house, there was enough rooms for the older kids to have their own, but they were lumped in together until everything was set up. Octavius didn’t mind much, he got along well with his brothers.

He showered of a morning, so he changed into his pyjamas and climbed into bed, pulling out his phone to see he had five new text messages, four from unknown numbers, the fifth from Ahk.

—

**Ahkmenrah** : I sent your number to the other guys, they should text you soon if they haven’t already!

**Octo** : Thank you ^-^ yes, they messaged me

—

**(Unknown)** : Hello Octavius!! I’m Attila!!

**Octavius** : Hello! :D 

**Attila** : It will be fun texting you!!! We can bond from bad English!!!

Octavius wondered if Attila always used so many exclamation marks.

—

**(Unknown)** : Hey, Octo, Ahkmenrah gave me your number. This is Larry :p

**Octo** : :p

—

**(Unknown)** : heeeey it’s the loud cowboy dude from earlier

**(Unknown)** : Jedediah if you forgot lol, you can call me Jed though

**Octopus** : I did not forget, you are very loud. Easy to remember :D

**Jed** : good to know <}:)

**Octopus** : That is a hat?

**Jed** : not really, I was trying something and it didn’t work

**Octopus** : Lol

—

“ _Who are you talking to? Your new friends_?” One of Octavius’ brothers asked. He made out like he was trying to see the phone screen.

“ _Yes, they’re very nice. One of them speaks Italian, he’s been helping me_.”

“ _Good for you! First day and already fitting in_.”

Octavius smiled, and went back to texting Ahkmenrah until it was time for him to go to sleep.


	2. Duolingo owl eats your toes asmr

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m sorry about the chapter title bjhdbjh

Octavius had been at his new school for a week, and Ahk had told him his English was already improving. With the help of Ahkmenrah and Duolingo (at Larry’s recommendation) he was picking it up pretty quickly.

He and Attila had invented a game where they each say a word in their native language and the other has to guess what it is in English, going back and forth until they get bored. Ahkmenrah wanted to join in, but he could speak both Italian and Hungarian so they didn’t let him, which he reluctantly accepted.

Octavius was already quite comfortable with his new friends, even actually trying to listen in on and join conversations every now and then. He especially enjoyed it when he was asked about Italy, usually by Jedediah. He tried his best to speak clearly, but almost always ended up just saying a word he messed up in Italian and getting Ahk to translate it.

Most of what he talked about was his family. They were important to him, and there was a lot of them, so he had a lot to talk about. At one point Jed asked if he knew anyone in the mafia, and Larry smacked Jed on the arm while Octavius just winked. (He did, in fact, know a few mafia members, but he wasn’t particularly close with them)

Octavius had a few classes with Jedediah, Attila, or both, and he found those the most enjoyable. Not that he didn’t like Ahkmenrah and Larry’s company, but the other two were just so obnoxious it was hilarious. 

The only class they all had together was history, taught by Mr. Roosevelt, though he got them to call him Teddy unless there was another teacher around. He had the air of someone who knew far more than he let on, but he often left the students to study and find out things for themselves. He claimed it helped research and problem solving skills.

The Italian had spent every night texting with Ahkmenrah and Jedediah. Larry wasn’t incredibly talkative, at least not to him, and Attila just didn’t like typing much, as Octavius had found out when he had tried to rip a computer keyboard in half after making too many typos. 

Ahkmenrah was mostly just helping him with his English work, but Jedediah seemed to genuinely enjoy simply talking to him.

The two of them had a lot of joke arguments over dumb stuff, like whether aliens were real or what shape the earth was (Octavius was adamant it was a dodecahedron, while Jed went with a cube) or who would win in a fight between a cowboy and a Roman gladiator. It was nice, Octavius had never had a friend like that before. He could talk about absolutely nothing and the conversation would still carry on somehow. 

His brothers would be moving into their own rooms in a couple days, and Octavius was excited to be able to call his friends instead of just texting. He was more confident typing than speaking, but he needed more practice outside of school somehow.

At the moment, though, they were all hanging out at a local park after school. Larry and Ahk were swinging on the swing set in unison, holding hands. It was excessively gay, and brought a smile to Octavius’ face.

Attila was spinning himself around on a roundabout, with Jedediah occasionally helping him spin it faster. Octavius himself was sitting in the sandpit under the slide tipping water from his drink bottle onto it and trying to make a small sand castle.

Attila eventually ended up getting sick and stopping the roundabout, running off to find somewhere to throw up. Jedediah went over to Octavius to see if he could occupy himself there instead.

“What’cha doin’?” Jed plopped himself on the ground, careful not to disturb whatever it was the Italian was making.

“Ah, trying to make a sandcastle, but it is hard,” he frowned at the vague lump of damp sand, “this sand is not very good.” Jedediah laughed, and Octavius’ smiled at him.

“Want some help? Attila’s out of commission at the moment so I don’t have anything better ta do.”

“Yes, that would be, uh, helpful.” 

Jedediah laughed again, and set about getting the lump more castle-shaped.

Several suspiciously phallic constructions later, they finally had a very lopsided castle, because they had taken separate sides and put different amounts of effort in. Surprisingly, Jed’s was the neater side while Octo’s was almost collapsing under its own weight.

When Attila came back, he immediately stomped on it just because he wasn’t paying attention.

—————

When Jedediah got home that night, he sighed.

“I’m home!” He called. No answer, as usual. He mostly did it as a sick joke to himself at this point anyways.

His mum had been gone for over a year, and he still wasn’t completely used to it. It wasn’t like he’d really had time to process it at the time anyways, and he was kind of just stuck in a weird limbo where he knew she wasn’t coming home but he still expected her welcome home hugs when he got back from school. He wasn’t even sure where she’d gone, there was only a note left saying she wouldn’t be coming back. He had called the police, of course, but there was so little for them to go on in tracking her down that the case went cold fairly quickly.

He had been allowed to live alone, being over sixteen and not having any other close enough relatives to take him in; it was a lonely existence, but he had been trying to learn to enjoy it. He didn’t have a bedtime anymore (though he stuck with the one his mum had put in place anyway), he could eat what he wanted (which was still healthy, and the kind of food his mum used to make), he could sing horribly as loud as he’d like because there weren’t neighbours close enough to hear it. But none of that made up for anything.

He shut and locked the door, dumped his bag on the ground, and flopped onto the couch with a sigh, letting his hat fall off as he did so.

Jedediah stared up at the ceiling, thinking about not thinking. Usually he would just talk to one of his friends to distract himself, but Attila didn’t talk much and Ahkmenrah and Larry were usually busy talking to each other. He just felt like he was annoying Octavius at this point, since Jed was always the one to text first. 

That was, until Jed heard a ping noise from his phone.

—

**Octopus:** Hi :D

**Jed:** hey, mate

**Octopus:** You didnt message me, I thought you died lol

**Jed:** nah :p just thought I might be getting annoying 

**Octopus:** No, not annoying. Im bad at starting talking so I wait for others

**Jed:** that’s fair. you messaged me this time though :3

**Octopus:** I was worried 

—

Jedediah smiled fondly at his phone. Octavius was too kind for his own good. Of course, he wasn’t completely innocent and had his moments of mischief, but he was a nice friend. They’d known each other less than a week and Jed could already say he would probably kill someone for Octavius. Was that dramatic? Yes, but Jed was a dramatic person.

—

**Jed:** _[image attached]_

**Octopus:** :O cat!!!

**Jed:** yeah she’s a stray that hangs around my house, I feed her sometimes 

**Octopus:** Good :3

—

They spent the next few hours talking to each other about cats and cars and animals in other countries (Octavius had an odd fascination with squirrels) until Octavius had to go to bed.

—————

Octavius woke up smiling, having had an odd but fun dream about Jedediah and himself driving around in a toy car being chased by an incredibly large dinosaur skeleton. He quickly typed it into the note he had on his phone for dreams, then put down his phone and immediately tried to go back to sleep.

He failed, ultimately, and ended up playing a game on his phone instead, until he got bored and did his Duolingo class for the day. Larry had joked that if he didn’t keep it up every day the little green owl would track him down and hold him at gunpoint until he did his work, and while Octavius knew that was utterly ridiculous, the thought of being killed by an omnipresent owl didn’t sound incredibly appealing, so he kept it up anyways.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaa I’m bad at ending chapters lol  
> Also! I have a natm discord server now :3   
> Here’s the link if you wanna join https://discord.gg/AeYQRJn


End file.
